If there are no minors, Akin and Kremer need to be on the team

[interloper]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

Love you too.  And I'm pretty certain a 4.74 ERA in AAA with a 1.44 WHIP would make you a Quad A type.  I'd love to be wrong but I don't think that I am.  

I agree, I'm pretty low on Akin overall. But I'd obviously love for the light to click on and suddenly he's commanding everything. He's got nice K numbers and that's about it. 

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, interloper said:

I agree, I'm pretty low on Akin overall. But I'd obviously love for the light to click on and suddenly he's commanding everything. He's got nice K numbers and that's about it. 

I'm not particularly high on him but I think heading into the season he should be on the inside track to a rotation spot.  Just because he's not great doesn't mean he shouldn't have had a chance at the rotation.  Maybe he steps up and improves.  But I'm not gonna get my hopes up.

[interloper]

8 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I'm not particularly high on him but I think heading into the season he should be on the inside track to a rotation spot.  Just because he's not great doesn't mean he shouldn't have had a chance at the rotation.  Maybe he steps up and improves.  But I'm not gonna get my hopes up.

Yeah. Hey who knows, Bedard was a nibbler until suddenly he was incredibly dominant. He only had 5 innings in AAA before becoming a regular. His AA numbers were dominant, but even then it was less than 70 innings. 

Boy we sure rushed players back then. Sometimes it works out fine. 

[Tony-OH]

Based on the stuff I saw from Bruce Zimmermann this spring, I think he may be ahead of both. I see Akin as a reliever during his career and I'm starting to get that vibe from Kremer, though I'm not ready to say that yet with him.

If they expand the roster to say 30 and there will be double headers and such, I could see all three getting some time this year if they play.

[Big Mac]

5 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

Love you too.  And I'm pretty certain a 4.74 ERA in AAA with a 1.44 WHIP would make you a Quad A type.  I'd love to be wrong but I don't think that I am.  

Really discounting the use of the juiced ball in AAA last year.  That ERA was among the best of qualifiers. 

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, Big Mac said:

Really discounting the use of the juiced ball in AAA last year.  That ERA was among the best of qualifiers. 

They also used the juiced ball in the majors.

[Big Mac]

24 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

They also used the juiced ball in the majors.

Point taken.  I just think it's worth noting that a 4.74 ERA in the International League last year is not what that number traditionally would entail.  It's more like a PCL ERA.  

[thezeroes]

Some of the fuel for thought that this OP gives me is:

With the talk of contraction in the Minors what types of players do teams keep (age/skill set)??

With such a short upcoming season (If Any) How  do teams in 2021 look at innings allowed to pitch??

With no High School/College baseball how will the draft look IF players are given another year of eligibility in college??

If players reject any move to open will contracts (Hence Free agency) be carried over or deemed Null/Void???

Will TV contracts and rights be discounted hence less revenue for ball clubs???

How many of the Sports Networks will go bankrupt with loss of advertising dollars since we have no LIVE events???

I have plenty more but I tire of what will be called a "NEW NORMAL" and it is not even here yet.

 

[wildcard]

4 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Based on the stuff I saw from Bruce Zimmermann this spring, I think he may be ahead of both. I see Akin as a reliever during his career and I'm starting to get that vibe from Kremer, though I'm not ready to say that yet with him.

If they expand the roster to say 30 and there will be double headers and such, I could see all three getting some time this year if they play.

While I don't know that Zimmerman has passed Kremer,  I do agree Zimmerman needs to be available to the team this season.

[24fps]

9 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I personally don't find it interesting at all, for the very reasons you outlined.  If they play this year and the rosters are expanded in such a way that's been proposed, it just opens up opportunities for Quad-A types, which Akin is...and there's nothing interesting about that. 

Kremer, hopefully, is better than a Quad-A pitcher.  

 

I'll be happy if the 2020 MLB season is in any way distinguishable from Quad-A.  For any team.  I don't expect too many established players to be giving the ol' 110% effort.  If there was ever such a thing as a "lost season" this is it, so extract whatever future investment value you can get out of it and pray for a vaccine sooner rather than later.

I would rather watch Akin actually compete for something in 2020 than watch Cobb punch the clock for his paycheck.

[DrungoHazewood]

13 hours ago, Big Mac said:

Really discounting the use of the juiced ball in AAA last year.  That ERA was among the best of qualifiers. 

I don't know what qualifier means in the IL (140 innings?), but among pitchers with 100 innings he was 10th in ERA.  And only 23 pitchers pitched 100 innings.  This is AAA if you're good you're almost automatically some MLB team's 6th or 7th starter and you're not going to spend the whole year in AAA.  Not unless it's the Orioles and they specifically want to avoid service time and don't care if they win at the MLB level.  Similar to Mountcastle's MVP.  He was the MVP despite having the 45th-best OPS (min 100 PA) in the IL, and the 4th-best OPS on the Tides because he was arguably the best real prospect in the league who spent the whole year there.  All the guys like Josh Vanmeter and Nate Lowe and Chance Sisco with much better batting performances got called up and ended up with fewer IL counting stats.

If you make the qualification criteria 10 or more starts Akin was 29th of 56 in ERA.

It also says something that Akin had just 112 innings in 24 starts. That's less than five innings a start.

[Moose Milligan]

13 hours ago, Big Mac said:

Really discounting the use of the juiced ball in AAA last year.  That ERA was among the best of qualifiers. 

Those weren't Akin's stats.

Those were Asher Wojciechowski's stats from, like, 2014 in AAA.  Which bear a striking resemblance to Akin's stats last year.  And I'm pretty sure Asher Wojciechowski is a Quad-A pitcher.  

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Those weren't Akin's stats.

Those were Asher Wojciechowski's stats from, like, 2014 in AAA.  Which bear a striking resemblance to Akin's stats last year.  And I'm pretty sure Asher Wojciechowski is a Quad-A pitcher.  

I thought Quad-A referred to that mythical beast who dominates AAA but gets his butt handed to him in extended trials in the majors. Asher Wojciechowski has a middling 4.27 ERA in AAA, and had a 96 ERA+ for the O's last year.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I thought Quad-A referred to that mythical beast who dominates AAA but gets his butt handed to him in extended trials in the majors. Asher Wojciechowski has a middling 4.27 ERA in AAA, and had a 96 ERA+ for the O's last year.

To me it refers to a guy who's just perpetually on the fringe between AAA and the majors.  I don't know if a Quad-A guy ever really dominates anywhere.  

[weams]

12 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

To me it refers to a guy who's just perpetually on the fringe between AAA and the majors.  I don't know if a Quad-A guy ever really dominates anywhere.  

You mean reverse Peter Principle?  A pitcher who kinda gets slapped around a bit no matter whether you have him face Tim Tebow and 47 year old Kevin Millar or not?